December 2011 Entry #13 Brimstone and Lily

Title: Brimstone and Lily
Author: Terry Kroenung
Trailer Creator: Janet Smith



Blurb:
Precocious twelve year-old Verity Sauveur, a red-haired tomboy, lives and plays at Ford’s Theatre in 1862. As the Civil War rages, Verity, best friend Eddie, and anxious single mother Ellen work backstage, helping John Wilkes Booth rehearse Macbeth. Verity falls through the basement floor into an ancient chamber, where she discovers a magical sword that is activated by the stone she has worn around her neck since birth. That sword contains the wisecracking spirit of a boy which she decides to call Jasper. He tells Verity that she is the Stone-Warden, chosen by prophecy to undo a terrible wrong perpetrated on the world by the Honourable Company. This evil corporation’s sorcery has placed every nation into its most conflict-riddled time. In France Napoleon rules, in England Catholics and Protestants plot during Elizabeth I’s reign, in Spain Christians and Moors slay one another. Italy struggles through the Renaissance. Germany still endures the Thirty Years War. Ireland is populated by characters from literature and Scandinavia is home to all manner of fairy tale creatures.

Sword and stone together grant special powers to Verity: strength, speed, enhanced senses, the talent to shift the sword (and herself) into almost any useful shape. She also understands the speech of animals, which comes in handy when Verity acquires as allies a Cockney mouse, a pirate queen parrot, pelicans, seagulls, and a platoon of rats with speech impediments.

Forced to flee home when the Company learns of her new status, Verity and her animal companions, along with friend Eddie, freed slave Romulus, and a Confederate cavalryman who might be a double agent, begin a hazardous journey across Virginia. Civil War battles, demons, an Assassins’ Guild, corrupted mages, undead Rebel soldiers, manure monsters, and Verity’s own doubts lie in their way. To make matters worse, Verity’s beloved mother has disappeared and they must hunt for her while preserving their own skins.